THE GEOGRAPHY OF ORGANIC FOOD: CONFRONTING COMPLEXITY AT LOCAL AND GLOBAL SCALES

The development of the EU agri-food system has been driven by modernization and
industrialization of food production, processing and distribution, the standardization of the
food supply and the globalization of food markets, but also by consumer demand for quality
food linked to different strategies in order to valorize local and/or regional food products. The
primary aim of this thesis was to evaluate the interaction between producers, consumers and
main organic standards, as drivers of the organic food geography at local and global scales,
using organic certification as the underpinning theme. The approach taken adopts some of the
core elements of quality conventions theory in order to understand at the global scale the
quality conventions that establish “orders of worth.” These orders of worth are subjected to a
reality test through a rigorous evaluation of EU-US equivalence agreements with respect to
organic standards and their possible implications for the local scale. At a local level, the
research focused on “socially constructed criteria” from the communication between farmers
and consumers that support “trust in organic farmers” as well as the market strategies used by
organic producers for addressing consumer expectation on the quality of food produced.
At the global level, it seems that in this reconfiguration of the global space there are forces,
probably from corporate interests, that are being imposed over the technical process of
equivalence, as revealed by the fact that the USDA and the EU organic regulations are not
equivalent at all. The research concludes that equivalence agreements could facilitate market
access for exporters, but not necessarily guarantee genuine organic quality to consumers.
At a local level, I found a lack of effective ‘connection’ between producers and consumers for
organic beef in Spain. The failure to develop and maintain this direct connection means that
the producer does not receive consumer feedback on the meat attributes which consumers
most appreciate. For producers such feedback could provide them with very important
information such as locality, price, taste, and freshness that play an important role in the
distinctiveness of organic over conventional products. My research revealed an urgent need to
reconfigure this relationship, as building a trustworthy relationship with consumers is essential
not only for conducting business but for the development and maintenance of an efficient and
sustainable organic food network.